


Safe Searches

by BarPurple



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Internet History, fanfics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: Mycroft needs to talk to the tech team about some curious people on interest.





	Safe Searches

Mycroft mentally prepared himself to enter foreign territory. The team in the Internet Monitoring Department were dedicated professionals, but they tended to talk in acronyms and shorthand that was incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. It did add a level of security to their work, but it did make understanding anything they brought to your attention rather difficult. 

“Morning boss.”

Several hands waved at him, but not one pair of eyes left their screens. He felt rather irked at being ignored in this manner, but brushed the feeling away, it wasn’t an intentional slight, he wasn’t an algorithm therefore was of secondary importance to the team.

“Good morning. David, I need a moment of your time.”

“Yeah, gimme a mo.”

It would have surprised many in Whitehall to see the way in which Mycroft gave a small nod in response to this, he wasn’t known for his patience and most people jumped with terror when he wanted a moment of their time. David jabbed at his keyboard and stood up, still not taking his eyes from the screen.

“Jodie? Keep an eye on this while I talk to the boss.”

“Sure thing.”

Finally Mycroft had the man’s attention.

“Morning Mr Holmes, what do you need today?”

Mycroft flicked open the folder he had with him and handed it to David.

“I need you to explain some of these people you have under low level observation.”

David’s eyes danced over the list of names, he smiled, “These are RPOs, no threat, we’re using them to refine our alerts.”

“Research Purposes Only? And you don’t find some of their search history to be disturbing? Poisons, bestiality laws, autopsy procedures, disused Underground tunnels and explosives. None of this worries you?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit freaky, but once we worked out they were Fickers it made sense.”

That was a new one on Mycroft; “What are Fickers?”

“Erm people who write and share stories based on their favourite media and real people. Your brother has quite the following. The Deerstalkers are what help us make the connection. We saw an increase in hits on Dr Watson’s blog and a rise in crime related searches, then there’d be an upswing in fics posted to Tumblr and AO3. It’s really cool and has meant that we’ve been able to set up keyword…”

Mycroft held up a hand to halt the flow of technical talk; “There are people writing fictions based on my brother’s exploits?”

“Damn right, and they take their research seriously, hence the Google histories.”

David’s computer beeped drawing his attention away from Mycroft, “I’ll email Anthea some links, but you don’t need to worry about the Fickers, they’re the safe kind of obsessed.”

“How reassuring. Thank you. I’ll let you get back to work now.”

David was already halfway back to his computer and gave him a distracted way. Mycroft turned a headed back to the more familiar world of politics. He shook his head as he considered the collective name for his brother’s fans. Deerstalkers? Oh that was going to annoy Sherlock no end.


End file.
